Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to product dispensers for vehicle washes and more specifically it relates to a product metering system for dispensing one or more products in an efficient manner.
Description of the Related Art
Any discussion of the related art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such related art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
Vehicle washes are comprised of various types of facilities capable of washing various types of vehicles (e.g. cars, trucks, planes, trains) such as but not limited to self-service manual vehicle washes, in-bay automatic vehicle washes, and tunnel vehicle washes. Vehicle washes dispense various types of products including but not limited to water, detergent, protective coatings (e.g. wax, polish), tire dressing, coloring, spot free rinse and the like.
A vehicle wash needs to accurately control the amount of product dispensed to ensure a quality wash of a vehicle and to avoid wasting costly products. Vehicle washes currently utilize various orifice sizes to meter a product (e.g. detergent, spot free rinse) into a flow of water. One problem with utilizing orifices to meter products is that they can become partially or fully blocked thereby undesirably modifying the product dispensing ratio. Another problem with utilizing orifices within a vehicle wash is that if the mix ratio of two products is desired, the orifices have to be replaced which is time consuming, expensive and prone to human error. Another problem with utilizing orifices within the vehicle wash is the orifice is in the product flow thereby contact with the product being metered is unavoidable when disassembling.
Because of the inherent problems with the related art, there is a need for a new and improved product metering system for effectively combining two products within a vehicle wash.